Pimiento Cheese
by vain-flower
Summary: Harry and Draco ensnared in an elaborate, if rather silly, limey plot. Pimento cheese covered insanity ensues. TEASER. R&R. Updated.


Unfortunately, I cannot take any credit in the writing of this teaser. This is the work of my brilliant friend, who wishes to remain anonymous. This whole story is the product of us discussing the Malfoys over the phone and gradually worked its way into an elaborate, if rather silly, lime-ish plot. The writing is crisp and clever, and she manages to maintain each character's personality while exposing and poking fun at some of the quirks thereof.

* * *

"And in conclusion, as a way of finishing one of the most spectacular years I have ever presided over," Dumbledore said grandly, sweeping his sleeves into the air with a rippling motion, "I would like to say to all of you: may Happity and Happy Hocks be with you forever.(1)" He gazed at the Great Hall, crammed with students, and gave a serene smile. The Gryffindors applauded with enthusiasm. The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs clapped with some hesitancy, and the great majority of the Slytherins just stared at one another and blinked a bit. A few sniggered.

"I reckon he's really cracked," Millicent grumbled into her pudding, and the Slytherins around her nodded gravely. He'd been working on it for years, but here was proof. Professor Dumbledore was sending them off with a blessing in Engrish.

"Catching the train home early, Potter?" Malfoy yelled across the hallway as the Great Hall emptied. Harry turned around, Ron at his elbow. Ron snarled.

"Actually, no, Malfoy," Potter said between his teeth, "I'm going with everyone else. Just like you."

"Why are you always tailing us like this?" Ron demanded, his red hair bristling. "Don't you have something better to do than follow a couple of Gryffindors around?"

"Strangely enough, I do," Draco said, tilting his head curiously. "I have to write to my father and tell him to bring an extra trunk; preferably the ebony one with the white velvet lining… for my Firebolt Alpha…" Draco's new broom was even sleeker than the one Harry had received in his third year, and it still set his teeth on edge every time Draco mentioned it.

"You see," he continued smoothly, with a little smirk, "I'm _not_ taking that filthy, cruddy train this year. Father's got me a car and I'm going home in _that…_"

"Good for you, Malfoy," Ron snapped. "I hope you run into a flying brigade of trolls with it too."

"Fat chance," Draco replied, raising an eyebrow. "It's _new_. It's got all sorts of anti-collision charms on it… but you wouldn't know, would you? Never having anything new in your whole miserable life would make you ignorant of things like technology, right?" He gave a thin smile as Ron's face went pale, then furiously red.

"Okay, shut up, the lot of you," Harry began, annoyed. _Why_ couldn't he just walk down the hallway without Draco picking a fight? And _why_ did Ron have to rise to it every single time? He grabbed Ron's arm and dragged him bodily away from Draco, who was leaning against the wall and smirking.

"Just ignore him," Harry muttered to Ron as they stomped down the hallway. "It's what you always used to tell me… just pretend he's not there…"

"Damn it, Harry, he's _always_ there!"

Ron was right. Draco had not left him alone for a single day, barring the ones in which either of them had been out of commission or severely enchanted, since the hour he'd first stepped into Hogwarts.

_I'm sick of him. I'm absolutely sick of that rotten little bastard. I hope he falls down a very long flight of stairs._ Harry climbed the Gryffindor tower and got ready for bed, and though the evening was spent in some merrymaking, it was halfhearted, and he was asleep before midnight.

Harry was in the middle of a dream about making a peanut-butter and banana sandwich when he was half-awakened by someone hissing "Hey, Potter…" in his ear and poking him in the arm.

"Rmmmmrrgh," Harry replied groggily, rolling away from the incessant poking. It left off just long enough for the person to walk around his bed and start poking his shoulder. The hissing came again. "Wake up, idiot…"

Harry peeled one eye open and thought at first that Dobby was on his bed again; he saw the moonlight shining off what seemed to be two huge, bright eyes. Harry glared sleepily and tried to burrow under his blankets, but a hand grabbed him roughly by the hair and pulled him back out. Awakened more thoroughly by the pain, Harry really opened his eyes and saw Malfoy crouched at the side of his bed looking sneaky.

"What the…!" Harry gasped, and Draco's hand covered his mouth so quickly he hadn't seen it move.

"Shhhh," Draco breathed, the moonlight making his pale hair shimmer. He removed his hand from Harry's mouth but replaced it just as quickly when Harry blurted, "What the bloody _fuck_ d…"

"Quieter than that, Harry, there's a good lad," Draco said distractedly, and leaned close to Harry to whisper, "You're not the only one who knows how to, shall we say, slither about without being seen…"

Harry's face was turning dark in the half-light and Harry wrenched off Draco's hand to stage-whisper furiously, _"How did you get in here? We have a password!"_

"Oh, come _on,_ Potter," Draco said with his usual condescending tone, "How much of a password is _Quidditch Cup_? Even if I hadn't heard someone else saying it this afternoon, I could have guessed it. Come down to the common room, Potter, where I won't have to chase off Ron when you wake him up with all your _goddammed shouting!_" He whispered this last so forcefully it was more of a hiss, and Harry was disinclined to argue with an annoyed Slytherin in his dormitory in the dead of night.

The Gryffindor common room was quite deserted, though not quite dark and cold, for the fire was down to glowing embers. Harry followed Draco down the stairs, shaking his head in disbelief. Both of them were in their dressing robes, and the strangeness of the situation did not escape him.

"So," Harry said once they were both settled in armchairs by the low fire, "what did you want, breaking in here?"

Malfoy seemed to hesitate, then said, "Just to tell you goodbye for the summer, Harry."

Harry was more shocked by Malfoy saying his first name than by what he had actually _said_. "What…goodbye? But you could have told me that anytime... You don't need to go sneaking around in the middle of… but… tell me _goodbye?_" Harry sputtered.

"Well, yeah," Malfoy said slowly, leaning toward Harry a bit. "It's a long summer, isn't it? And we won't see each other, and it'll… well, I'm leaving tomorrow, so it won't be till the fall that…" he looked at the floor with a peculiar expression on his face. Harry was still sleepy and confused, and seeing Draco acting this way was not helping his confusion at all. Malfoy got up from his chair and walked to Harry. The light from the low, soft fire put him in almost silhouette, making the edges of his robe golden-orange, lighting his hair. Harry noticed for the first time that it wasn't slicked back, but rumpled and beginning to fall down, as if Draco had already been in bed this evening.

_He got out of bed to wake me up and tell me goodbye?_ Harry thought with utter confusion. He had rarely been so confounded, even considering all the bizarre things that had happened to him in six years.

"Well, it's not like we're going to miss each other," Harry began clumsily, and his words were cut off abruptly by Draco gripping his hand in one of his own, placing the other under Harry's chin, and tilting it up for a kiss that shocked him to the core.

His body responded by sending his blood pressure through the top of his skull, and his skin constricted all over his body as Draco's lips moved roughly against his own. He sat perfectly still, petrified, for a few seconds—his brain cut off completely—Draco's hand was gripping his so tightly he was sure his fingers would be broken, and strangely, he was focused more on the pain in his hand than the sensation of Draco panting lightly against his mouth…

Harry jerked away and Draco fell back, his face flushed, not letting go his hold on the dark-haired boy. He slowly removed his fingertips from under Harry's chin and the flesh tingled where he had touched. Harry found himself speechless. He stared at the Slytherin, completely and totally unarmed.

Malfoy exhaled in a sort of sigh and turned away slightly, lessening the pressure on Harry's left hand, which ached in protest as blood re-entered Harry's mangled fingers. The sensation woke Harry from his shock, and he found himself saying, without planning a word of it, "Draco…I never knew…"

Draco's pale face whipped around to Harry as his eyes darkened with some of the usual hate. Harry found himself oddly relieved to see it there, but his stomach seemed to rise as Malfoy said, "Are you being serious, Potter, or are you addled? Why the hell do you think I've done everything… everything in my power…" he gripped the arms of Harry's chair and leaned rather close, his voice thick, "to keep close to you? I've moved heaven and earth for six years, if you aren't too stupid to notice…I've had my father bribe more people in the Ministry than he has in ten years, he said, just because I wanted to… no, I _had_ to…" he seemed to be having trouble speaking, and Harry was spellbound by this bizarre display of emotion.

"But what about trying to knock me off my broom? Insulting my parents? Flicking puffer-fish eyes at me, for gods' sake?" Harry broke in, needing an explanation. To his utter shock, Draco did not immediately reply but backhanded him across the face. It was no worse than what he used to get at the hands of Dudley—in fact it was quite gentle, considering—but it was so unexpected he reeled.

"You _are_ stupid, aren't you?" Draco said coldly, but there was a note of sadness in his voice as he peered closely at Harry. He reached out and fixed Harry's glasses, which he had knocked crooked, and his hands were so gentle Harry felt only the warmth of their nearness.

"Why do you think I _always_ sit behind you, Potter?" Malfoy asked him, perching on the arm of the chair, legs to the inside, effectively trapping Harry in it. If he slid off he would be in Harry's lap, and the thought kept him plastered to the farthest corner of the chair he could manage. Malfoy reached across him, propping himself up with a hand planted beside Harry's head. "Famous Harry Potter… he can do no wrong… no matter what sort of bullshit he gets into, someone pulls his arse from the fire just in time…"

"It's not true," Harry said defensively, uncomfortably aware of how close Malfoy really was. "I've saved _myself_ more times than I've needed help."

"Oh yes, thank you for reminding me," Draco said sarcastically, "Because I would hate to forget you're also a _hero_, who's saved dozens of lives every week between homework and Quidditch…"

"Are you _jealous_?"

"What? Of _you_?" Draco's eyes widened viciously, and his chest heaved with what Harry assumed was anger. "_You_, Famous Harry Potter, who lives in a dumpy little _shack_ with a bunch of horrid, disgusting _Muggles_? Famous Harry Potter, whose best friends are a Mudblood and a Pure-bred atrocity? Jealous of _you_?"

Harry was silent for a moment. He did have a point, but… "Well? Are you?"

Malfoy didn't move or reply. His face was not filled with hate, but thoughtful.

"Jealous of Harry Potter…" he said slowly… "The girls all swoon over him… he can't lose at Quidditch… his name is spoken throughout the lands, and even people like my dad… people who would love to see you flayed and skinned and hung up like a shrivelfig… even they speak your name, Potter. I don't allow myself to… well…" he breathed hard for a moment, then concluded, "I hate you more than you hate me, Potter."

"That's hard to believe," Harry said dryly, "considering I think you're a smarmy bastard."

Draco's eyes widened and he leaned in so quickly Harry had nowhere to move. Draco's lips were upon him at once and Harry tried to gasp, but he nearly choked on Malfoy's tongue as it invaded his mouth. He felt his skin heat at the contact and thought wildly, _he's a better kisser than Cho/(2). . ._

* * *

"And here," Lucius said smoothly, leading the reporter through his opulent sitting-room, "is our third Sitting Room, the White Room, which is decorated, as you can see, with portraits of my ancestors." A smarmy-bastard-looking man in one of the portraits ran his fingers through his blonde hair, smiling down at them. Lucius waved.

"And the bookcase here," the reporter, who looked somewhat like a rabbit, said eagerly, "I see you have a—"

Lucius cut him off by grabbing the back of his collar with a black-gloved hand and slapping him across the face with the other. The reporter goggled.

"That," Lucius said tightly, "Is not for the eyes of the _Torture and Toadstools Weekly_ readers. Though," he said, releasing the rabbitlike reporter, "if you were really interested, I might…" he reached onto the bookshelf and took down a small snuffbox made of pewter, with inlaid emeralds and onyx. Inside, of course, was something a bit more potent than snuff. The rabbitlike reporter's eyes widened, making him look as though he were about to be hit by the Knight Bus. He leaned forward eagerly, dipping his fingers into what Lucius Malfoy's ancestors had decorously called "Columbian Crystal Fairy-Dust."

The article in _Torture and Toadstools Weekly_ was a bit garbled and fanciful, but certainly giving praise of the highest order to Malfoys both here and beyond, world without end, amen.

* * *

"But, Dad," Draco said petulantly, sticking out his lip in a pout and leaning forward, "I don't _like_ pimiento cheese sandwiches…"

Lucius Malfoy turned his head sharply toward his son. "Get your elbows off the table. Am I catering _your_ birthday party, Draco? Does it _matter_ whether you _like_ pimiento cheese sandwiches?"

"But Dad, can't we have peanut butter and jam? Or even just marmalade?"

"I suppose you just turned nine this year, didn't you, son? Are you nine? _Peanut butter and jam?_ Will you at least _attempt_ to act in a manner more befitting your age and status?"

"Dad, pimiento cheese is horrid," Draco tried again, clinging to the edge of the table, wearing only a black t-shirt and boxers—the clothes he'd slept in. He had wandered downstairs that morning to find his father already dressed and groomed as usual, planning the menu for that year's Midsummer party. They hosted one every year, and the menu—just like every other aspect of the event—was the absolute height of fashion and decadence.

In Draco's opinion, however, pimiento cheese sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off were the absolute terrifying depth of gag-inducing hors-d-oeuvres.

"You are confusing me with someone who cares," Lucius said coldly. "This year, as every year, _Draco_, you'll eat it."

"I'll eat it, but I won't like it!"

"You'll eat it, _and you'll like it!_" Lucius roared, and Draco arranged his face in a pout and retreated.

"And wipe that look off your face, boy," he added, turning his back to Draco. The conversation was finished.

"Sorry, Father," Draco replied, turning away to skulk up the double marble staircase to his suite. He slammed some doors (mahogany and teak, carved with the Malfoy double serpent) on the way, feeling sulky.

"Stop slamming doors!" Lucius's voice echoed up faintly from the downstairs, and Draco stuck his tongue in that direction before quietly closing the door of his second bedroom. The carpet was deep, decadent plush, the darkest brown of a midnight forest. His walls were pearly gray paneling halfway up, and the walls took over with a pine green that was supposed to be soothing. Draco had long ago taken over the décor of the room, however, and posters of rap musicians were tacked clumsily all over the walls. This was a source of never-ending anguish for his parents, and guests rarely were permitted to see this atrocity. He was cowed enough to not leave wet towels or socks or Shrivelfig Newton wrappers on the floor (for long, anyway), but nothing short of Armageddon would get Draco to take the posters of D.W. Har-P and M-Killa (3) off his walls.

Draco shoved an armful of candy wrappers, notes, old school papers, letters and doodles off his desk and pulled a piece of his own stationery toward himself. A border of writhing serpents decorated the corners of the page, and his name was embossed at the top in silver ink that glowed in the dark. After staring at the empty page for several minutes, hearing his heart in his ears, he grabbed a quill before his nerves left him and began to write.

_/"Hello Potter,"/_

Harry read in disbelief. He looked at the envelope in his left hand (thick, pure-white parchment, with a blot of sealing wax—fancier, if possible, than the Hogwarts correspondence) and read his name there again. There was no mistake.

_Now he's WRITING to me…_ Harry thought, and his senses were dull with the… well, how much _weirdness_ was one guy supposed to experience in one lifetime?

_/Hello Potter,_

_I bet you're having a really good time with your Muggle FAMILY. I am having more fun than you, and my life SUCKS. I can imagine you're just lost without your little Weasel and your little mudblood. Don't feel too bad about it. I won't see Crabbe and Goyle until this fall (and good riddance to bad rubbish, right Harry?)._

_My dad's having this Midsummer Eve party and I have to be there and I have to eat pimiento cheese sandwiches. How much does one person have to go through, I ask you?/_

_I would kill for a pimiento cheese sandwich,_ Harry thought, remembering the hot dogs (no bun for him) and weak tea he'd had for dinner with the Dursleys.

_/Write me back. I had an idea—you should come to our party. It would only be for one weekend. You could stay the week if you want. Don't worry, Harry, we have plenty of food and we won't starve you like your Muggle FAMILY._

_DRACO/_

Harry grabbed a piece of paper from his own desk and scribbled hastily,

"Draco,

What are you playing at? Don't write to me. I have enough problems already with my Muggle FAMILY.

Harry"

And tied it to Hedwig, whispering, "Just get out of there as fast as you can."

She was almost across the neighbor's rooftop when he called after her, "And see if you can claw his eyes out while you're over there!"

_/Potty Wee Potter,_

_You don't have to be so snippy. It was just an invitation. I guess if you're already busy tying knots in your aunt's knitting and wearing old clothes, instead of coming to a very fancy Midsummer's Eve party with high-standing individuals of PRESTIGE, then by all MEANS, stay home with your MUGGLES._

_DRACO/_

_/Draco,_

_You're really starting to creep me out._

_Harry/_

_/Potter,_

_Does that mean you're not coming? I guess you're brave enough to stare down the Dark Lord several times but you don't have the bollocks to come to my party._

_DRACO/_

Harry mulled over this last with a cup of Sprite and Hedwig bouncing around on his desk. Midsummer Eve was rapidly approaching. Draco's persistence had finally gotten under his skin, and the not-so-innocent jest about his bravery was really irksome.

_That's no reason to give in,_ he told himself firmly. _He can say anything he likes about my bollocks…_ he clamped down on a small voice that wondered why Draco was interested in such a part of his anatomy; _…but I will not let him draw me into his little game. This is a trap._

So why hadn't he said anything about it to Ron or Hermione?

"It's got nothing to do with them," he muttered. "This is between him and me. Just as it always has been." He sipped his Sprite and finally wrote a reply.

"Dad dad dad dad dad," Draco yelled, bounding down the stairs three at a time and skidding on the marble floor, "can Harry come to the party?"

His father turned around slowly, with a look that would turn a Gorgon to stone.

"_What_ did you just say to me?"

"I said… er…Dad dad dad, can Harry come to the party?" He hurriedly put on his Whimpering Face, big Eyes and all.

Lucius stood immovable.

"Silence gives consent?" Draco tried hopefully.

The consent dragged out.

"Dad, I already invited him."

…

"Dad, he said he'd come."

The smallest flicker in Lucius's eyes.

"I'll eat your bloody pimiento cheese," he said sweetly.

Noogie chose the most ill-starred moment of her house-elf life to wander within Lucius's striking range.

"Dad… Er…" Draco stepped back quickly and piped up, wincing, "I thought we were going to need her at the party…"

Another house-elf appeared and grabbed Noogie by a broken ankle and dragged her, squealing, under the stairs.

"You," Lucius said without much emotion, as was his wont, "Will need both wrists to play Quidditch this autumn, am I correct?"

Draco paused, thinking. "A broken wrist would probably heal before…"

"Furthermore," his father interrupted, raising his voice, "You will need both wrists to carry trays of heavy, back-breaking hors d-oeuvres around the Midsummer Eve party, will you not?"

"Carry trays?" Draco cried, dismayed. "Dad…"

"Be careful, boy," Lucius replied in the voice Draco had learned meant he was short on patience. "I can make you serve trays from a wheelchair just as easily…"

"Dad, that's not fair…I just asked…"

"If you want something," Lucius said softly, "You know how to get it. Quid pro quo, Draco. One hand washes the other."

Draco did not point out this was sickeningly cliché. He widened his blue eyes enough to make him look innocent and subservient. "I'll serve trays, Father, and not complain about it…"

"Very good," his father replied. Unspoken in his reply was _"and…?"_

Draco paused a second more, feeling his father's eyes boring into him. "And I'll… er…" He found himself momentarily at a loss.

"Does the phrase _Father-Son Weekend_ ring any bells?" Lucius asked with a bit of snide sarcasm.

Draco barely restrained himself from shrieking "DAD, not AGAIN!!". With supreme force of will he said only, with a tight smile, "When is that again, Father?"

"That would be exactly two weeks after the Midsummer Eve party," Lucius said, smiling lightly. "Shall I order the wheelchair now, or wait till Friday afternoon, when we can go up to St. Mungo's and try them on for size?"

"No, no thank you," Draco said, trying not to panic. "The Father-Son Weekend sounds like a… like a lovely time."

"You've always thought so," Lucius said comfortably. Draco bit his tongue.

* * *

"Mon petit chou," Andre murmured, "Je t'aime…"

"Surely you jest," Narcissa said with what was almost a giggle. Andre laughed and pulled her closer. Her hair spilled across his chest. He loved her hair long—she had been growing it out just for him. And Luc. And Antony. Mathieu didn't seem to care one way or the other; with a third of a bottle of Chardonnay inside him, he wouldn't have complained if she'd shown up wearing another man.

"Excuse moi," Terrence said, reaching across Andre to take Narcissa by the arm. "I believe it is my turn to roll in ze hay with ze femme fatale…"

"Excuse _moi_, monsieur," Andre replied haughtily, holding Narcissa by the hip, "mais je ne finis pas."

"You can share," Terrence said, pulling Narcissa off Andre's chest, who laughed heartily, and she found Terrence's lips on her own. She was giddy with girlish delight.

"I'll buy dinner for both of you," she cried out happily as Terrence's kisses moved down her collarbone. "Je t'aime…!"

France was _such_ a lovely country.

* * *

"I'm M-Killa! Muggle blood spilla! Don't mess wit dis, unless you wanna see a thrilla! I roll round the world on my Caddy broom and I take hot chicks to my Boom-Boom Room! M-Killa! Blood spilla! M-Killa! Fear chilla! Yo! You like dis? It don't come cheap! I'm the wizard you run from on da street! I got Galleons like punks got trips and witches just fall at my fingertips! Yo! M-Killa! Muggle blood spilla!..."

"If that horrifying NOISE is not reduced to an unintelligible level THIS INSTANT, you will find yourself on the receiving end of a curse, and it will be one I have JUST MADE UP!"

"Dis ain't your—"

The silence was ringing.

"Much improved," Lucius said in a normal tone, though one eyebrow still twitched. He about-faced and glided down the stairs. In the green suite, M-Killa played on at a decibel level approximately equivalent to the shouts of an earthworm. Draco pressed a hand to his chest to see if his heart was still operational. After ninety seconds he felt something. After ten minutes he felt his blood pressure return from the stratosphere. Another unexpected blowup like that, and his father would have to scrape him from the ceiling with a spatula.

_Harry,_ he thought, to soothe himself. _Harry comes in just three days._ He busied himself making a mess of his desk drawers.

Lucius snarled at a house-elf to make him some coffee. It scampered away without the inevitable comment about Noogie. This was fine by him. His mind was filled with warm reminisces of Father-Son Weekends long past. _Ahh yes,_ he thought, and a smile appeared on his lips. _The tender togetherness, the fatherlike socializing, the boyish frolicking in the summer grass. He refused to share a cabin with McNair again. Eech._

"You are a young Dark Wizard in a long and esteemed company of hereditary Dark Wizards," he informed his son when he reappeared down the marble stairs.

_Shit,_ Draco thought with some desperation. "I know it, Father," he said aloud.

"I went with _my_ father to the Dark Ones Picnic Holidays, back when they still called it that, and he went with my grandfather in his boyhood days. The Dark Lord was not yet risen, but there is always someone—someone!—to support with magic and money."

"Of course," Draco agreed. _Make it stop,_ he pleaded with the sky.

"Back in THOSE days, one needn't try to make a way through throngs of holidaying folk to get anywhere," Lucius reminisced, his voice slightly bitter. "The roads were clear enough—people had a sense of just whom they should move aside for. No long queues, no full trolleys. In my father's boyhood, they still took trains, and you are sorely mistaken if you think their group was forced to break up and sit apart! No, people had more respect then for those of us with obvious superiority, Draco! In my _grandfather's_ day, cars weren't even available to the general public, but did that stop them? Would they travel in anything less than the best?" Here he paused expectantly, his gray eyes flashing at Draco.

"I would say certainly not, Father," Draco replied, wanting a sandwich. Lunchtime had come and gone. _I'm a growing boy,_ he thought desperately. _This is totally unfair. If I were at school I would tell Dad…_ He felt himself at a loss.

"They took a caravan of cars, fresh from the factories, shining and wonderful—no one had them at the time, Draco, and they thought cars were more magical than everything put together—and drove four hours to where the roads stopped. From there it was a two-hour ride by broomstick to their holidaying site. The air was cleaner then, and there were fewer demands upon the very upper class. All of them were married, to keep up appearances, I suppose, which is more important than you may choose to believe, Draco…"

"Yes, Father," he said, gagging inside. Retch, retch. _Voldemort would smack you if you went rhetoric on him,_ he thought sourly. _I just have to take it like a man._ Well, it was nothing he was unused to. His father waxed reminiscent once a month or so. No one else would believe it. He was strikingly composed in public, totally smooth and controlled. It was one of the more admirable qualities he possessed. But in the privacy of his own mansion, especially when he was outside several glasses of wine, Draco would be pinned to the nearest chair for _hours_ while Lucius talked…and talked…and talked. When he got through the subject of older and nobler wizards long gone, sometimes several times, he started on his very favorite subject: himself.

_Dunno why he doesn't just start on about himself,_ Draco thought sullenly, _Seeing as he always works round to it eventually. I suppose it's to keep the portraits quiet…_

"Dad," he asked suddenly, "Is Mum coming home for the party?"

"Narcissa?" Lucius said, caught off guard. "No, she's not. She's very busy in France." _…I'm sure_, he finished in his mind.

_I'm sure_, Draco thought bitterly.

"Why do you ask? Did you want her here?"

"Well," he was hesitant to admit it, but… "Kinda, yeah." He didn't list his reasons.

Lucius appraised his son astutely. _I don't think so,_ he thought slowly. _No, son, even your feeble plans will accomplish nothing. You have much to learn._

"I miss her, Dad," Draco said in a small voice. "She's _always_ in France."

"Yes, so I noticed," Lucius permitted himself to say, and Draco caught the spark in his eye.

"Can't you get her home just for the party? She never listens to my owls…"

"I sincerely doubt it. Her relatives in France need quite a lot of attention."

"Apparently."

"Don't be snide, boy."

"Sorry, Father."

"Is that the best you can do?"

"What?" Draco was totally taken aback. "What?"

"Asking for Narcissa…is that your best shot?"

"I…er…what?"

"Playing stupid? Don't hurt yourself, Draco. And don't make the mistake of thinking that I'll let Harry Potter into this house and let you keep him to yourself."

Draco had nothing to say. He stared at his father for a few seconds, then turned his back and went stiffly up the stairs.

Below him, Lucius chuckled softly.

* * *

I know! I know! It's just a teaser, so don't kill, hurt, or maim me in any way. This is almost all that is written anyway.

1 This is real Engrish. I received a lucky Japanese waving cat for my birthday and the box reads, and I kid you not, "Fortune cat brings you very best wishes may happity and happy hocks be with you forever." Indeed.

2 Much debate has gone back and forth about whether this name should be Cho or Ron. Teehee. more girlish giggling ensues

3. M, of course, stands for Muggle.

Did you know that the word fan stems from the words fanatic?


End file.
